How do you format date and time in Android?

Question

How do you format correctly according to the device configuration a date and time when having year, month, day, hour and minute?

Answer 1

Use the standard Java DateFormat class.

For example to display the current date and time do the following:

Date date = new Date(location.getTime());
DateFormat dateFormat = android.text.format.DateFormat.getDateFormat(getApplicationContext());
mTimeText.setText("Time: " + dateFormat.format(date));

You can initialise a Date object with your own values, however you should be aware that the constructors have been deprecated and you should really be using a Java Calendar object.

Answer 2

This will do it:

Date date = new Date();
java.text.DateFormat dateFormat =
    android.text.format.DateFormat.getDateFormat(getApplicationContext());
mTimeText.setText("Time: " + dateFormat.format(date));

Answer 3

In my opinion, I android.text.format.DateFormat.getDateFormat(context) make me confused because this method returns java.text.DateFormat rather than android.text.format.DateFormat - -".

So, i use fragment code as below for get current date in my format

android.text.format.DateFormat df = new android.text.format.DateFormat();
df.format("yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss", new java.util.Date());

or

android.text.format.DateFormat.format("yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss", new java.util.Date());

In addition, you can use others format follow http://developer.android.com/reference/android/text/format/DateFormat.html